Interstitial (Mass Effect)

[bjewelled]

Title: Interstitial
Author: Jewels (bjewelled)
Fandom: Mass Effect
Disclaimer: Mass Effect is the property of Bioware. So is the hamster.
Summary: When you put chronology of a relationship in a blender, and take a look at what's left over, you probably wind up with something like this. Nine excerpts from the relationship.
Author's Notes: Gah, it's been a long time since I've written something this overtly romantic. Although romantic is probably the wrong word to use here. It just started as something to keep me busy while I was playing ME2, to keep my brain from continually running through the off-screen scenarios. And then at some point I decided to keep writing them and, if not turn it into a story, turn it into a collection of little vignettes that entertained me. I shan't bore you by explaining my character choices. If you've played the games, you can probably pick up what I decided.
Spoilers: Heavy, for both games so far.
Word Count: 14, 379



**

One

**

Every planet had its own smell. It was something that Shepard had quickly learnt after leaving Earth. Even individual ships had their own lingering aroma. They were all sterile, of course, bacteria and virii thoroughly scrubbed out of the air, but some ships had slightly stronger smells of coolant, or others had the tang of mechanical lubricant in the air.

Horizon had the peculiar hint of mint to it. It clung to her hair, to her armour where she'd skidded along the grass to cover, and had somehow become attached to her skin. It had filled her nose, the unusual sensory input demanding her attention from the moment she'd stepped off the shuttle. The only time that it had been pushed back was when Kaidan had put his arms around her and-

She had taken herself off to her quarters the moment that she'd arrived back on board, ordering Joker to set a course for nowhere in particular. Shepard knew that the Illusive Man wanted to speak to her as soon as possible, but knew she could plead needing a shower to gain at least an hour before she had to confront the bastard who was pulling her strings.

Like she was just a marionette, a puppet.

The inner layer of her armour interfaced directly with her cybernetic implants, gifts from Cerberus, and it had taken her some time to get used to disconnecting the under-layers by herself. The first few times she'd attempted it, she'd needed Chakwas's help to avoid damaging the connectors. Chakwas had never looked at her with pity or disgust, only the cool professionalism that befitted her profession, but it was something that Shepard preferred to deal with privately. It didn't bother her per se but it felt somehow... private. Intimate. She tried to tell herself that she hadn't had the body given to her by nature since the day the Alliance had shot her up with a standard array of gene-mods. Her stamina had improved, clotting abilities, and then there were the biotic implants, which were just another flavour of cybertech, weren't they?

She stood in the bathroom of her quarters, staring at her reflection in the mirror as she peeled away the underlayer of her uniform, exposing the still-raw scars that marked her skin, glowing with an eerie light from the tech under the skin. It reminded her faintly of the cool blue of Saren's implants, before they'd chewed through his flesh, reanimated his skeleton and tried to kill her.

Did Kaidan see such a monster when he looked at her, she wondered? Not just a member of Cerberus, the ones who'd murdered Kohaku, performed experiments on rachni, and thorian creepers, but as a semi-synthetic monster like the ones they'd fought against and destroyed years ago? Not that it felt like years to her. It felt like months, at best. Maybe that was why the pain of Kaidan turning his back on her so easily, calling her a traitor, hurt more than she would have thought possible, considering she still remembered exactly what it had felt like to suffocate to death in the vacuum of space.

She peered into the mirror, examining herself with an exacting eye. She could just see where the seams of flesh joined, where the point that they met wasn't perfect. There were the more obvious gaps, obviously, where the tech showed through, but she could swear that her eye colour had changed. So when Kaidan looked at her, he saw a stranger, a traitor, a Cerberus puppet.

A broken doll.

Shepard didn't even realise that she'd broken the mirror until she was standing there, her hand flat on the broken remnants of the glass. Blood had started to seep out from under her palm, dripping in long, fat lines towards the sink. She pulled back her hand and looked at the palm. Already the blood was clotting, the enhanced weave just below the dermis already knitting the sliced flesh together. The blood stopped flowing, and in less than a minute there was nothing left by faint pink lines that she knew would fade to white and then return to normal skin shades, albeit lighter and with a faint glow from underneath.

The worst part was that Shepard was pretty sure that when she left, the next time she returned she'd find that the mirror had been replaced. Kelly would no doubt make curious and sympathetic noises, and the Illusive Man would make veiled comments about allegiances and emotional responses. Shepard had gone through her quarters and pulled every bug that she could find but she was pretty certain that there were others, better hidden and still firmly in place that she didn't know about. So she turned on the shower and got in and turned her face into the spray.

Inevitably, Horizan's smell of mint left her, and the last lingering traces of Kaidan's scent went away.

**

Two

**

The bar was in the dingiest corner of Zakera Ward, with bad lighting and a worse smell. It was also almost exclusively populated by non-Humans. Kaidan Alenko wouldn't even had bothered going near the place if he hadn't heard a couple of C-Sec officers gossiping about a Human woman who had made the mistake of walking into the place, and wondering aloud about how long she would last. Kaidan had tried to kid himself for about five minutes that it wasn't her and that, even if it was, it was a bad idea to go and see her. He'd said everything to her that he'd intended, back on Horizon, and there wasn't really anything left to talk about.

He was telling himself that right up until the point where he crossed the threshold of the bar whose name loosely translated to the 'Tepid Shrew', and then such preoccupations fled his mind as he had to duck to avoid a thrown barstool. There was a wild cheering in the air, most of the patrons standing clear out of the way, drinks held safely in the hand, pressed up against the walls as they watched the fight in progress in the middle of the bar, egging on the various combatants.

It wasn't, Kaidan realised as he stared, a free-for-all. It was a group of four turians versus one human.

One human female, and she was winning.

Shepard was clad in full body armour, sans helmet, looking as comfortable in a military-grade hardsuit as most people would in exercise clothes. She was armed, but making no move to draw any weapons, so he guessed that she didn't seem to be in any danger. As she twisted, lashing out with a leg to kick out the left knee of one of her assailants, he even caught a flash of white as she bared her teeth in a tight grin. The turians were outclassed, but apparently drunk and uncaring. Shepard batted aside wild swings and punches, sending one turian crashing into a table, where he groaned and went limp, while the one whose knee she had damaged rolled on the ground making pained sounds. A third attempted to grab the front of her armour and toss her aside, but Shepard grabbed his shoulder plates to anchor her and headbutted him hard enough that the crack was audible above the jeering of the crowd.

Kaidan winced in sympathy, but she didn't even seem staggered by it. The turian, on the other hand, stumbled backwards, nearly cross-eyed, and tripped over his injured comrade. Shepard, looking only amused and unruffled, turned to the last of the group and made a 'bring it' gesture to him, goading. The turian froze for a half a second, before he held up his hands and started hastily backing through the crowd, out of the bar. The assembled patrons made disappointed noises, and an asari next to Kaidan made a victorious sounding noise, demanding her winnings, and people started filtering back to their seats, righting tables and chairs. It obviously wasn't such an unusual occurrence to have fights breaking out.

Kaidan stood by the door, somewhat hidden by the milling patrons, and watched Shepard right a chair and set it by a table, making a curt gesture to the bartender as she sat down heavily. The krogan was over with a bottle of something blue, and a shot-glass, depositing both in front of Shepard and saying something that Kaidan couldn't hear. In a smooth gesture she pulled a large-denomination untraceable credit-chit from somewhere about her waist and held it up with an expectant expression. The krogan took it and seemed much happier, ambling back to the bar.

Shepard either hadn't noticed him, or was pretending she hadn't, giving him an opportunity to withdraw without having to speak to her. It would have been easier to just walk away. But then it would have been easier if he hadn't left the Presidium, chasing a rumour. He'd come this far now, so he crossed the bar and sat down opposite her as she was in the middle of downing a shot of something bright blue.

"Staff Commander Alenko," she said, as she slammed the glass down on the table. "Enjoy the show?"

That answered the question of whether she'd seen him. "More than the turians did, I think," he said, trying to keep his tone light. He could almost pretend that they were acquaintances accidentally crossing paths, catching up after not seeing each other for a while. But she couldn't seem to look directly at him, which put that idea to rest.

"They thought I should go back to somewhere that catered to 'my kind'." Shepard poured herself another shot of fluorescent blue and drank it before she carried on speaking. "I didn't feel like moving."

Kaidan sniffed at the open neck of the bottle and his eyes watered. It smelt like industrial cleaning solvent. "I'm surprised you'd even be capable of thinking about moving with this stuff inside you."

"You'd be amazed at my tolerances these days," Shepard said, in a remarkably barbed tone. She seemed disinclined to say anything else, just taking the bottle off him and refilling her glass again.

"Shepard-" he started, then faltered. Any words that came to mind seemed inadequate. Instead he looked around awkwardly. They were being ignored by most people, and the injured turians had already been dragged outside, dumped in the corridor until they woke up. "This isn't really your preferred drinking hole."

Shepard snorted faintly, running one hand through her hair to brush it back off her forehead. "It's one of the few places where there probably aren't Cerberus agents around," she said, "Although you never know. Better drinking here than in my quarters. I suspect that even the fucking hamster is sending reports back about me and I haven't heard anything to convince me otherwise."

He stared at her for a long moment. "You have a hamster?" he asked, bewildered.

Her eyes snapped up, meeting his for the first time. And then she laughed, and if it sounded strained and with a slight edge of mania, he pretended not to hear those parts, and just focussed on the way that her shoulders sagged as the tension went out of her. She made a quick gesture with one hand, and a scantily clad asari quickly deposited a second shot-glass on the table.

"And fish," Shepard said, pouring them both a measure. "That I keep killing. Replaced the damned things about six times now."

He picked up the shotglass. "To dead fish?"

Shepard smirked and clinked their glasses together. He knocked the shot back in one smooth gesture and instantly regretted it. He revised his original thoughts about the drink. It didn't just smell like industrial solvent, it tasted like it as well. He blinked rapidly to make sure that he wasn't about to go blind. "How are you still conscious?" he asked, when he had finally regained the use of his vocal chords. "Is it a good idea to be that drunk?"

"It's not the getting drunk," she told him, "It's the staying drunk. Give it thirty seconds and I'm stone cold sober, and I don't feel like being stone-cold sober." She stared at the bottom of the shot glass. "My kindhearted scientist friend has turned into a nasty bitch of an information broker who sounds like her mother, the Council has decided to pretend the end isn't nigh so they can avoid getting ousted by panicked citizens, and my now-former lover hates me and thinks I'm a traitor. All of which is enhanced by the fact that, to my perspective, about a month or so ago, everything was just fine."

Shepard forwent the glass and swigged directly from the bottle. "Now ask me why I should be sober."

He felt his stomach twist, and he looked at the scuffed and scratched metal table that separated them. "I don't hate you," he said quietly.

"Yes you do," Shepard said hoarsely. "As you should. I may not trust Cerberus as far as I can throw the Normandy—which isn't very far because the new Normandy is huge—but I'm still taking orders from them, right? I'm a traitor. And she that was dead came forth. Lazarus, working with the devil. Which begs the question: why are you here and not calling the Alliance down on my ass?"

"You telling me Cerberus wouldn't get you out of any custody I put you into?" he said, calmly, trying to pretend that the rawness in her voice didn't affect him, that every little gesture he remembered from those years ago and had committed to beloved memory didn't cut him like a knife.

"Hmph, that's probably true," Shepard mused, staring off into the middle distance somewhere. "Although I'd get bitched at for a while for the inconvenience of it all."

"Shepard," he said, reaching out to touch her hand. He couldn't feel the warmth of her skin through the hardsuit, but he could remember the sensation perfectly. "I don't hate you."

Shepard blinked and stared fixedly down at the tabletop.

"Leave Cerberus," he urged her, "Come back to the Alliance. It's not too late."

"Is the Alliance going to do anything about the Collectors?" she asked, quietly. She sounded tired, resigned.

"I doubt it," he admitted. "Not right now, when they don't have anything more concrete than rumours."

"Well then," she said, and shrugged, the motion mostly swallowed by her armour, "Someone should get on that."

He felt the sudden burning need to talk, to explain, but before he could do anything about it, she stiffened and pulled back, her hand going to the side of her head. "What is it, Edie?"

Kaidan couldn't hear the reply, carried as it was through the comm implant in her ear. He wondered if Edie was her helmsman or second in command.

Shepard sighed distinctly. "Tell her I'll be right there," she said, sounding brisk and professional. It was a far cry from the somewhat drunk woman who had been sitting opposite him a few moments earlier. He supposed she really hadn't been kidding when she claimed to sober up quickly.

He wondered, not for the first time since he'd seen her on Horizon, what exactly it was that Cerberus had done to her.

"I need to go," she said, "Keep the bottle."

"Right," he said, dully, staring at the remnants of the blue liquid.

She got to her feet, showing no signs of swaying. He had no doubt that she was perfectly combat ready, and he abruptly got a flash of her standing there in front of him on so many missions, ready to take on the galaxy and win, and swallowed past the lump in his throat. He'd never really stopped loving her, he realised. He just didn't know how he was supposed to trust her.

She strode past him, heading for the exit.

There was just enough liquid left in the bottle for one last drink, so he poured it out into a shotglass and drank it. He was slightly more prepared for the sensation of being hit about the skull with a brick, and so was able to restrain the urge to cough. His eyes watered.

A hand clamped down on his shoulder, causing him to jerk sharply to see who it was, some part of him already gearing up for a fight. He stared up at Shepard, who had a suddenly fierce expression on her face.

She didn't hesitate, just bent down and pressed her lips to his in a raw and passionate kiss. He could blame his response on the drink, or the shock of her being alive, but the truth was that he wanted this, wanted her for this moment if he could never have another. He reached up, fingers tangling in her hair, thumb brushing her jaw, held her there, and kissed back.

They stayed there in that uncomfortably, awkward position, exchanging their wet and fierce kiss until finally Shepard broke away, touching her forehead to his for a moment. "I miss you," she whispered, and then she pulled out of his grip and was gone for good.

The asari waitress smirked at him as she came by to pick up the now empty glasses. "Been a while since I got kissed like that," she mused with a faint sigh, "Gotta be a good fifty years. You want another drink, darling?"

He cleared his throat. "Um... no. Thanks." He found he was having trouble framing his thoughts into actual words.

She smiled at him and took the empty bottle with her as well.

He got to his feet, slightly unsteadily, and left the bar, talking the long way through the Wards back towards the Presidium, feeling the need of the walk to clear his head. It took him a good few hours to get from the bar to the higher-class areas of the Citadel, by which point he had almost managed to figure out what to do. When he finally got back to his accommodation, he hesitated only a moment before taking out his omni-tool and starting to compose a message.

Shepard, he began.

**

Three

**

Ships always had their own little quirks, their own little idiosyncrasies and flaws that added together to create the character of the ship. Sometimes those sparks of personality took years to develop and sometimes, like with the Normandy, those flaws were right there from launch day, and one of them was the portside heat sink manifold access station.

Lieutenant Kaidan Alenko stood over the monitor, rubbing at his forehead in exasperation. He'd fixed the same console at least half a dozen times now, and the sensor net kept flipping out and dying. The engineers had sworn off the console, citing it as 'non-mission-critical unknown error', after they'd wasted most of the trip from Arcturus to Earth trying to sort it out. Chief Engineer Adams had gladly signed over management of the issue to Kaidan, and Kaidan was already regretting having agreed.

"Ok," he said, to the console, opening his omni-tool, "One more time. From the top."

"Lieutenant."

He jerked out of his awkward half-crouch and jumped to attention, saluting sharply as Captain Anderson's voice reached him.

"At ease," Anderson said, returning the salute casually."Busy, Lieutenant?"

"I'd be grateful of the reprieve, actually, sir," Kaidan said, honestly.

Anderson's mouth quirked into a small smile. No doubt he'd heard the tail of the eternally failing matrix from Adams. "Our XO is coming aboard at Earth. I'll be in conference with Alliance command when we dock with the transport. I'd like you to give her a quick tour and get her settled in."

"Aye-aye, sir," he said, nodding his head sharply.

"Excellent," Anderson said, "Commander Shepard will be coming aboard at oh-five-forty ship time tomorrow."

"Commander Shepard?" he repeated, startled, and only realise that he had blurted the name out when Anderson looked at him with a sharp glint in his eye. "The Commander Shepard? Of Akuze?"

"The very same," Anderson said, inclining his head, "She's a decorated marine, and we're lucky to have her aboard."

"Of course, sir," he said, wondering if Anderson had thought that he had meant anything other than respect with his question. "I'd be honoured to show the XO around."

"Good. Carry on, Lieutenant," Anderson said.

Kaidan saluted again, and watched as Anderson headed towards the medical bay, presumably to speak to Doctor Chakwas.

"System error," the Normandy's VI told him, and the console's status lights all changed to red. Kaidan sighed, and pretended he was allowed to smash it with a hammer for one brief, pleasant moment.

~*~

"That is not a thing of beauty," Joker said, disdainfully. The transport vessel was big, clunky, and lacked in any sort of external decoration except for an ID string printed on the bow. It was exactly the sort of the thing that the government and the military liked to use to move people and equipment around without spending too much money on niceties. They were normally used for low-cost rapid deployment operations.

Kaidan leaned on the back of Joker's chair, peering out of the narrow slit of window that looked out on the grand vista of space. "I wonder what's so important they had to put our XO on a fast transport for rendezvous. This is just the shakedown cruise, right? I thought we were supposed to take her onboard in a couple of days."

"Don't be so sure," Joker said, hands moving across the console, eyes fixed on readouts, but chatting easily, as if he wasn't busy trying to match attitudes and velocities with another ship, matching airlocks without tearing either of them to shreds in an unanticipated collision. "I got new vectors. We're heading to Eden Prime best speed, and they've got Pressly plotting a stealth approach. Sound like an easy shakedown cruise to you?"

"Hmph," Kaidan frowned at the approaching hulk of the transport. "You know what they say about no plan surviving contact with reality."

"Too true, man," Joker said, as a thunk resounded through the hull, making the deckplates shiver under Kaidan's boots. "Go meet our XO, and tell me if the hero of Akuze is all they say she is. I'm betting bad-assed and one-eyed."

"You won't laugh if she really is."

Joker reached forward and tapped the comm. "Hard dock achieved, airlock synched. Stand by to receive passengers." He leaned back and jerked his head towards the airlock. "Better get moving."

Kaidan turned his head to see Ensign Mullen, the Captain's Yeoman, stepping up, holding a dataslate and looking nervous. He smiled gently at her. She was a pretty, diminutive thing. Attractive, but somehow a bit too delicate for him. She had a nice smile though, which she flashed at him.

"Who are you meeting?" he asked, faintly curious.

She opened her mouth, about to answer, when the Normandy's VI chimed in to report the completion of decontamination, and the airlock door slid open with a noisy scrape. First through was a turian in a thick hardsuit, pistol at his hip. Ensign Mullen stepped forward and smiled that same nice smile.

"Spectre," she greeted, "Welcome aboard the Normandy."

"Thank you," the turian, the Spectre said, bowing ever so slightly towards Mullen, "And please, call me Nihlus. Spectre is not a rank or title, and I find I prefer the informality."

Mullen's smile broadened. Kaidan wondered if she'd ever taken the exo-linguistics courses, and if she realised that, in at least half a dozen cultures he could think of off the top of his head, smiling and baring the teeth was considered a threat display more than anything. Nihlus didn't seem to be offended, at least.

"Captain Anderson is in the comms room and is waiting for you, Nihlus," she said, "If you'll follow me?"

"Lead on," Nihlus said, gesturing in a gallant fashion.

Kaidan watched them go. A Spectre. Joker was right. It definitely wasn't going to be a run of the mill shakedown cruise. He dragged his attention away from the retreating Nihlus as another person came through the open airlock, easily hefting a standard issue duffle bag, wearing body armour and carrying a full weapons loadout.

That someone was a woman, around Kaidan's height, slim, athletic, with a sharp and intelligent look about her, and a smile on her lips. Then he caught sight of the N7 marker on her armour, and he realised both who she was, and why she was armed for battle on an Alliance ship. He snapped to attention and saluted.

She halted in front of him, and looked him up and down in a smooth motion. He couldn't tell whether she was assessing him or just checking him out. He was fairly guilty of doing the latter when dealing with subordinates, like a fair few others, not that anyone would admit it. He kept his eyes forward. She returned the salute with her free hand.

"At ease," she said. Her voice was warm, and rich. "Lieutenant Alenko, right?"

He tried not to look too startled. "Uh, yes, ma'am. Commander Shepard, ma'am."

She looked rueful. "A long flight on a rapid deployment transport means you don't get a lot of sleep, and you might as well read your personnel dockets. A pleasure, Alenko." She held out her hand.

"Likewise, ma'am," he said, shaking her hand. She squeezed his hand, without the slight over-compensation people tended towards when touched people while wearing hardsuits. The lack of tactile feedback was hard for a lot of people to deal with, gripping objects too tightly or not tightly enough. Shepard wore her armour like a second skin. "Captain Anderson asked me to show you where to stow your gear and give you the tour while he's in conference with-" He looked down the long hallway down towards navigation and the comms room. "Well, while he's in conference with the Spectre."

"Love to hear the story behind that one," Shepard said, following his look.

"You don't know, Commander?"

Shepard shook her head thoughtfully. "No. And Nihlus didn't even say much on the flight. We picked him up a couple of relays back. I wasn't even expecting to be here yet. I had two days of leave on Mirage still booked."

Mirage, a nascent colony established on a group of tropical archipelagos on a small moon in the Herald system on the edge of asari space. It was more renowned for its tourism industry than anything. Kaidan abruptly felt for Shepard. He wouldn't have liked being dragged away from a beach-side holiday. The thought was immediately followed by the question of whether she had spent the days clad in a swimsuit or a bikini. The hardsuits were figure hugging enough that he didn't have a hard time picturing either, and Kaidan suddenly prayed that the low lighting of the flight deck hid any colouring of his cheeks that suddenly happened.

"Early recalls are never a good sign," Shepard added. "When they divert a transport to pick you up, something even worse is brewing."

"Speaking from experience, Commander?" the question was probably inappropriate, but Shepard didn't seem to find it an impertinent question.

"Hell yes," she said, "Anyway. To the lockers, Lieutenant, so I can finally ditch this stuff, even if it's only bikinis and beach towels."

He opened his mouth, and closed it again with a snap. He had no idea how to answer and was suddenly acutely embarrassed by the idea that she might have worked out what he was thinking. He actually hoped she was just winding him up. From the ill-suppressed grin at his silence, that was very likely the case.

"Right, ma'am. I mean, aye. If you'll follow me."

He led her to the lockers that most of the senior officers had for their own use. The rest of the crew had to traipse down to the cargo hold to access their personnel belongings, while the ranking officers were located right next to the sleeping pods. He pointed it out, mentioned that only Anderson got private quarters, which received an eyeroll and a comment about rank and privileges, before taking her into medical to meet Doctor Chakwas.

The two exchanged handshakes and the usual polite greetings, and Chakwas said, "I've already received your file from your last posting, Commander, but I'm afraid I wasn't expecting you yet and haven't had time to review it. Do you have any medical conditions that I need to be made aware of?"

Shepard shrugged, the weapons on her back shifting with the motion. Chakwas hadn't even given the guns a second glance. "No allergies or injuries, Doctor," she said, "I have the early-version L3, well-integrated."

Kaidan tried not to look startled. Biotics weren't common in the military, and this was the first time he'd met an N with an implant. Early stage L3 meant somewhere between L2, his own implants, and the modern L3 implants. There was rumour that it meant a higher spiking L3 without the side effects, but it had never been proven in testing. Kaidan tried to keep up on biotic research.

"Good. I'll require you to have a standard physical before the day's out," Chakwas said.

Shepard gave a jaunty little salute. "You're the doc, Doctor. I'll be back once I'm done with my tour."

Chakwas grinned. "Commander, every time I think I have the infirmary-resenting stereotype of the military down pat, someone comes along to shatter it. I'll see you shortly."

He gave her a quick walking tour of the rest of the ship, showing her the cargo elevator, the lower decks, engineering, the mako, showers and toilet facilities, before leading her back towards the flight deck, introducing her to Pressly and walking her forward to meet Joker. They'd separated from the transport not long after Shepard had come aboard, and Joker was holding the Normandy in orbit. Occasionally there were flashes of the kinetic barriers kicking in as bits of ancient space debris skipped off the shielding.

"Flight Lieutenant Jeff Moreau, this is Commander Shepard, our XO." Kaidan introduced, as Joker moved his chair away from the console and shook her hand. Watching carefully, Kaidan could see the minute relief in Joker's face that Shepard wasn't one of those who gripped too hard while wearing a hardsuit, and he came away with his hands intact.

"Joker, to anyone who flies on my ship," he told her.

Shepard didn't look like she considered it funny, she treated the statement seriously, just saying, "Joker it is then," without taking issue with the 'my ship' statement.

"You're the infamous Commander Shepard," Joker said, folding his arms and looking at her appraisingly, "Are all the stories true?"

"Oh all of them," Shepard agreed dryly, "Especially the one about me, the two asari, the rubber chicken and wholesale bottle of maple syrup."

"I don't think I've heard that one," Joker said, lasciviously, "Care to share?"

"Only if you buy me drinks," she told him.

Joker gave a pout of disappointment. "Too much like hard work. I'll have to go without."

"Your loss," Shepard said, before throwing a glance at Kaidan. "Well, I believe I have an appointment with the Doctor if we're done, Lieutenant."

"Yes, ma'am," he said, "I should be helping Joker with the relay calculations anyway."

Joker didn't react, though he knew perfectly well that Kaidan needed to be doing no such thing.

"Of course. I'll see you later, gentlemen," Shepard said, nodding to them both before turning with a grace that only came from years of physical training, and heading back towards the medical bay.

Kaidan and Joker watched her go.

"I have to say," Joker said, barely contained glee in his voice, "I love combat-spec hardsuits."

"I hear you," Kaidan said, not taking his eyes away from the sight that was walking away from him. "I definitely hear you."

**

Four

**

"I'm going to scream," Kaidan said, in a low, pained voice. "I'm just going to start screaming and not stop."

Liara T'Soni squeezed his hand in hers and whispered, "Just a little while longer," in his ear.

He returned the gesture. The feeling didn't go away, but he at least didn't feel so much alone. He was adrift in a sea of unfamiliar faces wearing rich-looking clothes, affecting important attitudes. There were Admirals, Ministers, Ambassadors and what seemed to him to just be interested parties who had enough money and influence to justify their presence.

As far as funerals went, it was probably one of the worst that Kaidan had ever attended. They weren't calling it a funeral, though, it was a 'memorial service'. They were now sitting at the 'reception', held a lushly furnished diplomatic area in one of the few intact areas of the Presidium, it was full of polite conversation and graceful servitors moving about carrying refreshments, and Kaidan was sure that Shepard would have hated every minute of it.

He knew that it wouldn't have fazed her in the slightest, could imagine her working the room with her usual combination of charm and grace, and then taking the opportunity to roll her eyes at him in exasperation when Udina had his back turned.

He knew that it wasn't what she would have wanted, because she'd once told him so.

He and Liara sat separately from the party, such as it was, in comfortable chairs that sat under the large windows that looked out on the reservoirs of the Presidium. It was simulated nighttime outside, and the water reflected the dim glow of the nebula that was allowed to seep through. Lights from the buildings glimmered, and if Kaidan unfocused his eyes, he could pretend they were stars.

They had been almost inseparable since Kaidan had been released from days of debriefing by uncaring brass and intelligence officers only to find Liara standing outside the Alliance offices on the Citadel, her eyes bright and her mouth set in a thin line that spoke to how hard she was trying to control her emotions. He'd been tired and feeling battered down to his soul, and something inside had broken as he'd looked at Liara's devastated expression. He wondered if she'd waited there every day for him to emerge.

He'd crossed over to her and put his arms around her, hugging her tightly. She'd returned the embrace, and they'd spent the next few days clinging to each other out of a sense of mutual grief. He'd even crashed on the couch of the apartment she'd been provided with by her University, avoiding the Alliance barracks. They hadn't managed to bring themselves to talk about what had happened, just provided moral support to each other by virtue of their presences. When they'd gotten the message about the memorial service, and the invitation, she had fussed with his uniform collar, and he'd complimented her on her dress, pointedly ignoring the overly cyan cast to her eyes, the equivalent of the raw red eyes of a weeping human.

They'd been forced to sit through a memorial service as a parade of people who had never even met Shepard gave testimony about her bravery, brilliance and heroism. Liara's hand had clutched at his arm tightly, but he hadn't objected. He had just about managed to get through that ordeal, but he could feel himself pacing somewhere near his breaking point.

"I would have thought Joker would be here," he murmured to her, scanning the crowd.

"I heard he was in the infirmary," Liara said, keeping her voice soft to avoid being overheard, "I spoke to Tali before she left. Engineer Adams told her that Joker had thrown a punch at an Admiral. He broke his arm. If he's out, I imagine that he got advised not to turn up to such an auspicious gathering."

"Christ," Kaidan stared at her in shock, "Why the hell would he do that?"

"I can't speak to his thinking at that exact moment," she said, shrugging. "But I would hazard that his state of mind at the time included heartbreak and guilt."

Kaidan's first instinct was to snap that he should feel guilty. If he hadn't stubbornly refused to leave his post, hadn't disobeyed the evacuation order, hadn't forced Shepard to go and drag him out, then she would have been on the evacuation shuttles, she wouldn't have been blasted into space, wouldn't have-

He halted that train of thought before it could spin off into the cycle that it kept getting caught in. Liara was right. Joker was heartbroken. He'd cared for Shepard as much as any of them, maybe even more than a few. Shepard had never cared that Joker's body was broken. She'd let him have more free reign with the Normandy than most helmsmen ever got. And Kaidan couldn't wish the guilt of feeling responsible for the death of someone you cared about on anyone.

"Doctor T'Soni." An asari had approached, casting a quick glance over Kaidan, eyeing his uniform, before clearly dismissing him from her attentions. "I was surprised to hear that you had joined the crew of a Spectre's ship. You never seemed the type for adventure."

Liara smiled thinly. "Lieutenant Kaidan Alenko, this is Doctor Ysera V'Lesh, a former colleague of mine at the University."

"Research Director at the Dorril Foundation these days," Ysera said, with a superior smile. Kaidan recognised the name as a major player in explorative research. Liara had mentioned them once as she explained, aboard the Normandy, over a meal that had included Shepard, Garrus and Tali, how most archaeological research was funded by private companies, usually in the hope of finding ancient Prothean technology they could adapt and sell. It had been virtually impossible for Liara to get academic funding for digs to remote planets, one of several reasons why it was generally just her and an omni-tool doing all the work.

This woman clearly thought her position meant she was better than Liara, who had lowered herself to slumming with soldiers. He felt a low level of irritation on her behalf.

"I hadn't heard," Liara said, "I'm afraid that I've had rather more important things to worry about."

"Hunting down a rogue Spectre, yes. Must have been exciting, my dear."

Liara's jaw clenched slightly, and Kaidan wondered if she was having to restrain the urge to throw the other asari across the room with a well-placed biotic throw. "Yes, it was," she said, "Right up to the moment my ship blew up, killing friends and loved ones, turning my grief into a spectacle for the rich and smug."

Ysera V'Lesh seemed somewhat taken aback by the acerbic and frank nature of Liara's reply. "Well, of course, I had no intention-" Kaidan had never heard an asari stammer before. In this case, it was rather amusing.

Liara turned to him, pointedly ignoring Ysera's acute embarrassment. "Lieutenant," she said, "I find I wish to leave. Would you be so kind?"

"Of course, Doctor," he said, standing and offering her his arm, gallantly.

They left Ysera blushing a deep cerulean, and headed for the exit, taking care to avoid any senior politician or admiral who would want to speak with someone from Spectre Shepard's crew. When Liara went to retrieve her wrap, Kaidan stopped at the bar and dropped a few credit chits for what he wanted. When Liara returned and saw what he'd bought, she laughed lightly and handed him her wrap.

"Try to be subtle about it," she said, with a faint smile. "Don't want any rumours starting up."

He snorted. "Let 'em," he said, but covered the bottles with the wrap so that they wouldn't attract attention on the way out, if there were any press lingering. They snuck out via a service corridor, and no one spotted them.

Kaidan explained his thinking to her, and when he said, "Call Joker," he said, "See if he's out of the hospital."

~*~

Joker was waiting for them when they got to remote environmental access hallway high up, relatively speaking, over the Presidium. There was no one there. It was sized for something larger than keepers, so it could be assumed that it had been designed to be utilised, perhaps as a linkage between two of the diplomatic buildings, but that the current denizens of the Citadel had never found the need. So it was empty, quiet, and had one of the best views over the Presidium, all the way from the council tower halfway around the ring to the other side.

Shepard had been the one to find this place, crawling around half the Citadel looking for keepers to scan. She'd stood there, murmured, "Wow," and then made a comment that some people would kill for apartments with views like that. Then she'd dismissed the vista and gotten them moving again. It somehow seemed appropriate to remember her there. It really was little more than a walkway, with transparent walls. It meant that Joker could sit on the ground, looking pensively over the playground of the Citadel movers and shakers, and ask,

"How was the party?"

"Horrible," Liara declared, sitting down next to Joker, her black dress flowing around her as she lowered herself to the deck. "Shepard would have hated it."

"Not sorry I missed it. Like any of those bastards gave a shit about her," Joker's words were unpleasant, but he sounded only tired. His right arm was in a cast, and he had a vaguely spacey look about him that Kaidan recognised as the side effect of heavy painkillers. He'd recovered from his injuries after the Normandy's destruction, only to immediate go and break another bone. Kaidan wouldn't be Joker on those days for all the Universe.

"That's why we're here." Kaidan held out one of the bottles, a bright orange liquid that looked somewhat radioactive to the untrained eye. Joker took it, and raised an eyebrow at the label. "Friends and expensive booze. Just the way she wanted it."

"Works for me," Joker said, handing the bottle to Liara, who twisted the top off, took a drink and handed it back. Joker followed suit, and passed it on to Kaidan. They sat there for several minutes, doing nothing but passing the bottle back and forth, each lost in their own thoughts.

"Did you really hit an Admiral?" Kaidan finally asked, looking at Joker's arm.

Joker smirked broadly. "Hell yeah. He deserved it. Haven't you heard?"

Liara frowned slightly. "Heard what?"

"Us Alliance monkeys are all getting reassigned to non-flight positions. I think they want to watch us, keep an eye on us. Everyone followed Shepard into open rebellion, after all. Probably don't want us to get any ideas."

"Shit," Kaidan muttered, leaning back against one of the transparent walls, legs stretched out in front of him. "I hadn't heard, no."

"When was the last time you checked your omni-tool?"

"A while," he said, evasively. He'd been avoiding opening his messages. He'd only looked at the official message about the service because the subject line had caught his eye.

"I'm useless on a planet," Joker said, holding onto the bottle for slightly longer, taking a deeper drink. Kaidan might normally have made a comment about combining booze and painkillers, but if there was ever a man that had every right to get as drunk as he liked, it was Joker. "No point. No point at all. I think I'm gonna quit."

"Quit?" he blurted, startled, "The Alliance?"

"No, book of the month club. Of course the Alliance, y'idiot."

Kaidan wasn't sure how to respond to that. The military was more or less his life. Leaving didn't even occur to him as an option. He supposed that it wasn't a universal feeling, but it was still weird. He opened the second bottle, this one full of green liquid. The combination of tastes was strange, but not unpleasant.

Joker gave Liara the bottle and a questioning glance, "What about you, Liara? Got any plans?"

"I find myself somewhat at... what's the human phrase... at 'loose ends'." Liara said, thoughtfully. She looked none the worse for having consumed the better part of something expensive and very alcoholic. Maybe hanging around marines for several months had improved her tolerance. "What do you do when you achieve your life's work when you're only a bit over a century?"

Kaidan thought about that for a moment. "Congratulate myself on making it that far," he said.

Liara chuckled, softly, "I remember Shepard's reaction when she found out my age. I think she thought she was older than me. It felt like it in a lot of ways... I felt... like a child around her. Like I didn't know anything."

"You do a lot of living if you grow up on the streets," Kaidan said, thoughtfully.

Joker took the orange drink off him, but just turned the bottle over in his hand thoughtfully. "She ever tell you much about that part of her life?"

"Never," Kaidan said, shaking his head only once before arresting the motion. It made the world sway a bit too precariously. "She never brought it up. What I know I only know because Ash told me she once spoke about Earth as a hole anyone would be eager to get away from, and because we ran into that man on the citadel who threatened to 'reveal her past'."

"I never heard about that," Liara said, sharply.

"She shot him," he said, "Saw her shoot men before, plenty that deserved it. Never in cold blood like that, though. Didn't think it was a good idea to quiz her on the subject."

"Happy childhoods don't often produce N's," Joker pointed out, finally taking a drink. "Gah, my mouth tastes like cinnamon grapefruit. Weird."

"Street gangs, Akuze... I sometimes couldn't believe she was functional in society," Liara admitted, "It sounded like such a blighted past that surely no one civilised could come from such a background. It just creates thugs, mercenaries and criminals." Liara sighed. "I was an idiot. She was brave. Intelligent. Charming."

"And hot," Joker said, "Really really hot. The woman could fill out a combat suit."

"Well, yes," Liara said, as if that were blindingly obvious.

"And she cheated at cards," Kaidan pointed out, "She took Garret and Mulholland for a ride when they were too dumb to believe her innocent act."

"God I remember that," Joke said, "Garret bitched for a week. Shepard just kept smirking about it."

"The crew always felt so close to her," Liara mused, "Every one of us, every one of the crew, followed her without question. She always had this way of... drawing loyalty, affection."

They lapsed into silence for a minute. Kaidan fiddled with the label on the bottle. When he finally spoke, it felt like someone other than himself was speaking. "I loved her," he said, dimly surprised at how calm he sounded, how his voice didn't wave her. "I would have stayed with her if she'd... if she'd let me."

Liara made a small, distressed sound. "You weren't the only one," she said, bitterly, "But at least you had her." She downed the remainder of the orange liquid, using the back of her hand to wipe her lips, her fingers lingering on her cheeks to wipe away the sudden tears.

Guilt twisted at Kaidan's stomach. "Liara, I'm sor-"

"Don't apologise," she said, roughly, "Don't apologise for loving her, or being there for her, or because you were the one she wanted and I wasn't, or so help me Kaidan Alenko, I will put you through a wall with my brain."

Kaidan choked back the reflexive apology. "Yes, ma'am," he said, believing her utterly.

Liara sniffed slightly, and wiped the silvery trails from her cheeks.

Joker reached out, tugged on Kaidan's sleeve. Kaidan handed over the bottle without comment. "I never realised," Joker admitted, "I mean, there were rumours, but you know what small ships are like. If you paid attention to some of the rumours, Garrus was secretly sleeping with Wrex."

"There's a disturbing thought," Liara said, in a slightly steadier voice.

"You guys kept things quiet," Joker added. "How long were you..."

"Since the night before Ilos," Kaidan said, "The month of shoreleave we were forced to take after the Siege. And then whatever moments were could grab when our shifts worked right, and no one was watching. Not necessarily sex, y'know, just... talking."

"Now I'm the one who's sorry," Liara cleared her throat. "You should have had more."

"Yeah," Kaidan said, not feeling like taking what life had dealt them with good grace, "We should have. I've had people I've been with for longer, but I didn't feel anything for them what I felt for her. Not one tenth of it." He looked at Liara. "I should probably shut up. It's not fair to say this stuff to you."

"No," Liara said, shaking her head. "Tell us about her. Tell us about the woman you saw that no one else could. Please."

So Kaidan took a deep breath, and did.

**

Five

**

"Please tell me you fed the fish."

"I fed your fish." Yeoman Kelly Edwards said, promptly, as she followed Shepard into the Captain's quarters aboard the Normandy SR2. Shepard was working at the seals of her armour, and had managed to wedge two fingers into the neck seal, starting to unlatch it when she stopped dead just inside the door. Kelly only just stopped before walking nose first into the back of her CO.

"Kelly," Shepard said.

"Yes, Commander?"

"If you fed the fish, where are they?"

Kelly fidgeted with the pad in her hands. "Well, I came in to feed the fish like you asked," she said, "And I fed them."

Shepard turned, quirking an eyebrow. "And?" she prompted.

"And then I realised the food wouldn't do much for them as they were sort of dead."

"Sort of?"

Kelly tried a smile. "Very dead?"

Shepard threw her hands up in the air. "That's it. I'm done with fish. I'm just going to contemplate the seaweed. Please tell me why Cerberus thought a fishtank was a good idea in the Captain's quarters?"

"Fish are relaxing," Kelly pointed out, "It's why they're kept in medical waiting rooms."

"Great. I'll give Chakwas the damned fish." Shepard returned to fidgeting with the suit seals. "Dammit, I think one of those geth husks shorted out the releases. Couldn't give me a hand, could you?"

"Look at it this way," Kelly said, as she set the pad down on the desk, next to the computer console, "At least the hamster's still kicking it."

Shepard turned her back on Kelly, giving her access to the rear seals and the power-plant connectors. Kelly had never been training beyond basic instruction in combat gear, couldn't imagine being as comfortable with it as Shepard clearly was. The releases were fiddly even with both hands free, it seemed to demand two more fingers than she possessed, but after some digital contortions, there was a soft click, and the seals released, the suit powering down with an almost inaudible whine.

Kelly caught the torso armour before it thudded to the floor, turning to set it on the floor. When she turned back, Shepard had managed to remove the rest of the exterior plating, leaving only the thin underlayer that left nothing to the imagination. Shepard was clearly someone who was comfortable with her own body, as she kept talking even as she pulled the underlayer free, carefully pulling it away from the exposed bits of cybertech on her body.

"The hamster," Shepard said, oblivious to Kelly's regard, "Is clearly a mutant Cerberus spy who watches me sleep."

"Squeak." The hamster seemed to agree, nose sticking out of his little cardboard house.

"Paranoid about surveillance," Kelly asked, careful to inject a note of teasing into her voice, "Now that is interesting."

"Less of that, young lady," Shepard said, wagging her finger as she pulled on a ground. Kelly was careful not to give any more regard to the cybertech connectors than to Shepard's face. "What do you have to report?"

Kelly walked back to the desk, picking up her pad. "You have new messages awaiting you at your private terminal," she said, "Status reports from all departments have been filed and waiting for your review. No red flags, though Engineering have highlighted that the portside cargobay could use a new CO2 scrubber. No rush, it's just the one in there is apparently a little troublesome."

"Anything else?"

"Operative Lawson asked to speak to you when you were back aboard. She's in her office."

Shepard sighed ever so slightly. "Yes, fine. Tell Miranda I'll be there as soon as I have a minute."

"Yes, Commander," Kelly said, making a note on her pad.

She didn't intend to be nosy, she really didn't, but she was a psychologist by training, and one didn't take up such a skill by being a wallflower who never sought about information about those around them. So when she had finished with her pad and Shepard hadn't dismissed her, she looked down at the desk.

Personal terminal, a fiction novel, files, a medal stand, indicating that she takes pride in her accomplishments, even if they have been done whilst under the aegis of Cerberus, and a photograph...

Kelly waved a hand, and the proximity sensor in the frame picked up the gesture, bringing up the image it contained. A rather handsome young man, military uniform just visible at the bottom of the frame, a generic non-personal photo, garnered from public news sources or possibly Cerberus intelligence. She recognised him.

Kelly suddenly realised that Shepard wasn't speaking. She brought her head up, ready to apologise if Shepard thought that she was out of bounds, but Shepard was instead leaning against the desk's edge, staring thoughtfully at the photo.

Kelly watched her CO, took careful note of the way that her fingers absently rearranged the folds of her gown to cover the exposed tech connectors, hiding them from sight. Curious. She was confident enough with her body with someone who only counted as a female friend at best, but the thought of this particular man seeing those connectors fuelled an unconscious embarrassment.

"He's very handsome," Kelly said.

"Yes," Shepard said, then shook herself and smiled in a way that didn't reach her eyes, "But between gene mods and regular workouts, a lot of men in the Alliance military are."

Shepard hadn't shut her down yet, and she'd admitted her feelings about her old Lieutenant easily enough. Kelly took the risk of pushing a little further. "So what did attract you to Commander Alenko?"

Shepard didn't answer directly. She just smiled ruefully. "I always knew he'd make Commander," she commented.

A belief that even from a bad start in life, he would achieve equal status with her. So very similar to Shepard's own past, the same story but with different actors and sets. The feeling of finding a kindred spirit, enhanced by the thrill of possible death during the pursuit of Saren. A short but intense courtship.

Kelly didn't say anything. Sometimes her analytical brain really killed the romance in a situation.

Finally Shepard straightened, as if rousing herself from a daydream. "That'll be all, Ensign."

"Aye, Commander," Kelly said, tucking her pad into the crook of her arm, and heading out promptly, before Shepard grew uncomfortable and made it harder for her to open up to Kelly in the future. But she did look back in time to see Shepard reach for the photoframe before the door slid shut, blocking her view.

**

Six

**

The warm breeze from Mirage's vast seas blew in through the open windows. It carried a heady scent of tropical flowers mingled with the freshness of the water. Every planet and moon had its own smell, and Shepard had thought, the moment she'd first set foot on the tropical moon, that she rather liked this one. Not that she was paying much attention to it at that moment. The breeze drifted across her naked body, deliciously cooling as it whispered across damp, sweaty skin.

"You," she said, as she caught her breath, "Have been holding out on me."

Kaidan grinned at her, bending his head to kiss her, and when she was thoroughly distracted, rolled onto his back, pulling her with him. She found herself giggling (giggling! Her!) like some sort of schoolgirl, but couldn't bring herself to be too bothered about that.

He really had surprised his with his enthusiasm, and inventiveness. She supposed it wasn't so surprising. There was no longer the crushing fear that tomorrow would bring death or the failure to prevent Sovereign from destroying known space, and here, far away from the Citadel, the Alliance, rules and regulations, with another biotic who had no fear of him or his 'strange' abilities, he showed himself to be surprisingly uninhibited.

The crew of the Normandy had been 'required' to take a month's shore leave. Shepard could think of several reasons why off the top of her head. It kept them dispersed, off the press radar, where it was much harder for them to speak up and rally any sort of public support, given that they were being hailed as heroes. The Council wanted them out of the way while they rebuilt their base of power, and reasserted control over known space, reassuring the populace that they weren't all about to die. It wouldn't be good if the Spectre who saved the Council was giving soundbites that contradicted the party line. The Alliance wanted to study the damage to the ship and the Mako, to figure out a defence against the geth and Reaper weapons, and wanted to keep separate a crew that had shown more loyalty to its commander than its orders.

Shepard hadn't raised an objection, but then she had her own selfish reasons. She'd seeded rumours and electronic breadcrumbs that sent anyone looking for her to the other side of known space. If anyone caught her, she'd claim that she was seeking privacy, and as a Spectre she only truly answered to the Council, who couldn't care less where she vacationed. If someone saw a passenger manifest of the transfer to Mirage, they might see a 'Miss Lamb' on the roster, but not find anything odd about it.

"Couldn't have you making so much noise back on the ship," Kaidan said, teasingly, as he smoothed his hand down her back. "Adams might have thought something was broken."

"That's insubordination, mister." Alright, so maybe she had become a tad uninhibited herself.

"Yes, Commander," he said, with a grin.

Part of her was telling her, in the quiet moments when she actually had a chance to give this affair any thought, that this was some silly infatuation, that shipboard romances never lasted and, besides, did they really know each other well enough that this was anything more than a physical compatibility enhanced by a shared fight against an apparently indomitable enemy?

Shepard didn't kid herself. She knew she looked good, though her haircut was more a practical one than anything, and she never saw the point in wearing makeup. She ran around in gravities ranging from non-existent to semi-crushing, and had to be athletic and built hardily enough to handle whatever the galaxy decided to throw at her next. She knew how to turn a phrase, learnt how the moment she'd figured out that the dumb fucks who couldn't reason their way out of a paperbag wound up out of their skulls on Red Sand, cannon fodder for the gang bosses.

Of course, that same part of her life had taught her the value of her body, and how easy it could be to ensnare the hapless. She'd never felt driven enough to use such cheap tricks, valuing words over physicality, but ex-lovers that she'd had in the years of Alliance service had proved that men were suckers for a pretty face and a nice backside, and didn't really care if she had two braincells to rub together. Eventually, she'd just sworn off military partners, not considering it worth the while.

Flirting was different, of course. It was words, another way to turn a situation to the advantage, and could be rather fun besides. Harmless fun, the sort they didn't court martial you over. That's all it was supposed to be with Kaidan, a bit of harmless flirting, taking the pressure away from the undeniably political assignment of catching a rogue Spectre. Yes, there were legitimate reasons it was important to stop Saren, but the Council had called her constantly, and her terminal had filled up with private messages from Ambassador Udina, and Admirals who wanted her to do jobs for them that her newfound 'above the law' status meant that they couldn't get the work done themselves. She was good at politics, but didn't have to like it.

And then suddenly Kaidan had been standing in her quarters and faced with the choice between jumping off the rather precarious cliff that was in front of her, and backing away quickly, she'd leapt without thinking, trusting he'd catch her.

She couldn't actually remember the last time she'd trusted that easily.

No, she did. Henrick, back in basic. The first man who'd ever shown her a bit of kindness in courting her, or so she'd thought, used to the rough nature of the streets. She'd trusted him too readily, and when it turned out he just liked how she looked, and didn't give a shit about anything else, she'd taken it as a learning experience, and not handed out that trust so readily again. Sex was easy, faith was something she didn't care to place in anyone. She'd knew she'd suffered for lack of friends because of it. Her circle of companions generally consisted of her shipmates at any given time. If any of her former partners had been aboard her ship, come to her the night before a dangerous mission, she would have smiled, pointed out the regs about the CO of a ship fraternising with the crew, and sent them on their way.

But not Kaidan. It was something of a fiendish puzzle that she couldn't work out.

There was a noise, just on the edge of her hearing, a beep of a message alert.

She sighed, starting to pull away and sit up, to find wherever it was she'd stashed the omni-tool and check what was so important. Kaidan, however, was somewhat reluctant to let her go. He snaked arms around her waist and pulled her back down before she could get away.

"Where do you think you're going?" he asked her, pressing his lips against her neck, making her shiver even in the warmth of the air.

"The galaxy could be in peril," she said, "Civilisation as we know it might be on the verge of falling."

"What a pity," he murmured, "We'll be stuck on this tropical moon forever. Real pity."

She chuckled and tugged his hair, pulling his head back gently. "You'd miss the extranet," she said, "Don't think I don't know that anything with a Y chromosome is looking at porn on that thing."

"That's true," he said, "You'd better answer that. Can't deprive the galaxy of porn."

She kissed him, firmly, until the omni-tool beeped again, and she slid off the bed to go and find it. It turned out to have been tossed aside inside her kit bag, twisted around a t-shirt. She slid it onto her arm, turned it on, and looked for new messages. It was sitting at the top of the list, unread, and certainly wasn't to do with galactic peril.

She opened it, and sat down heavily as she read it. When she was finished, she stared out of the window at the sea, lost in recollections. She had no idea how long she was out there, but she realised it was more than a few minutes when something touched on her shoulders and she jumped. It was only Kaidan, of course, his fingers on her shoulders and a concerned expression on his face.

"Something wrong?" he asked.

She took a deep breath as he sat down. "No, I suppose not," she said, and held out her arm, wreathed with holography. He gently grasped her wrist, turning her arm so that he could properly see the display. He stiffened with surprise as he read through.

"Is this-?"

She nodded. "The last thing I can do for Ash. The only thing. I had political cachet from the Siege, and from elevating humanity to the Council. I figured I might as well use it before the wind changed and I wound up on the outs."

It was a note from a member of the Alliance parliament, co-signed by a member of the Admiralty, regarding her request for a posthumous pardon for the grandfather of Ashley Williams, especially in light of his granddaughter's sacrifice in the fight against Saren for the preservation of all sentient races, especially humans. They'd considered it carefully, the message said, and they'd agreed. Shepard knew perfectly well that they realised it would come across very badly to the public to have humanity's only Spectre be turned down for a request on behalf of a crewmember who'd given their life, when said Spectre was being hailed as a hero by all and sundry.

She flicked her wrist, shutting the omni-tool down.

"You know," she said, giving voice to the feelings that had been running through her mind only moments before, "When I die the politicians and Admirals are going to love it. It'll be a great networking opportunity. They'll all come and sympathise and shake their heads and say what a terrible loss it is for humanity." She turned and looked Kaidan in the eye. "When I go, I want the same as we did for Ash. Friends, expensive booze, and fuck the politics."

He didn't do her the disservice of pretending that would never happen. He just smiled, perhaps a little sadly, and kissed her on the cheek. "Promise," he said. "But I do have one question."

She nodded slightly. "Ask."

He drew a breath, a little unsteadily, she thought. She was leaning against him, her arm against his chest. Not an easy question to ask, and she had a sneaking suspicion what it might be.

"You never answered, when I asked before," he said, slowly, watching her reaction closely, "Why did you save me and not Ash? Was it because of... of this?" He touched her cheek with a finger briefly.

She sighed, looking down at the omni-tool interface still around her forearm. She slid it off and toyed with it as a distraction. "Are you sure you want to know? You may not like the answer."

She could feel him stiffening, preparing himself for the answer. He probably thought he knew what she was going to say. She hated to disillusion him, but he'd asked, and she refused to treat him like a child by refusing to answer. They weren't in a briefing room where she could dismiss his concerns with a sharp word and 'that's an order'. "Ash was a soldier, through and through. A very competent one." Unable to sit there, and feel the way his body reacted to her words, she stood, with the excuse of stowing her omni-tool again. "High scores, field stripped a weapon under a third the required time. She liked poetry and had the same drill instructor as I did. And then there's you."

She turned, leaning against the table and folding her arms, as if she weren't standing there naked, and the gesture was a pointless one. "You're an officer, a Lieutenant in the Alliance navy. You're a biotic, a powerful one, an L2 with minimal side effects. You're an effective and skilled technician, highly competent in combat against weaponised machines. You represent an investment of hundreds of thousands of credits in training and implant tech alone." She set her jaw, looking at him hard so that not a single word was lost. "Simply put, Lieutenant Alenko, I judged your life to be more valuable than hers. If that makes me a cold bitch, then so be it."

He looked away from her for a long moment, out of the window at the sea. She fought the urge to fidget while she waited for him to make up his mind. Eventually he stood, walked over to her, and put his arms around her. "If you'd told me it was because of us," he said, sincerely, "I probably wouldn't have forgiven you."

She smiled at him, and let him pull her into a warm embrace. She still hadn't figured out the puzzle that was her feelings for Kaidan, or why he'd managed to worm his way inside her heart, but one thing was certain:

He was never finding out that she had lied.

**

Seven

**

Joker stifled a yawn as he handed the helm over to the second shift, stretching his limbs for the first time since he'd started his shift. It was easier to stay seated than get up and down for breaks all day, so he tended to settle himself in for the duration whenever he worked. He also tended to hang around a few minutes longer during a shift change. It was easier to move around if he didn't have to fight the other crew coming off and on shift. One misplaced elbow, he tumbled to the ground and there went his leg. Chakwas kept muttering things about how a variant on Shepard's bone-weave might be therapeutically beneficial for Vroliks, but as far as Joker was concerned, a couple of broken bones every now and then didn't make getting turned into a cyborg worthwhile. He sometimes wasn't sure how Shepard dealt with it.

Speak of the devil. Shepard was standing in the open door to the armoury, having some sort of conversation with Jacob. The way he was looking at her-

He snorted. "Aww, how cute."

He hadn't meant for anyone to hear him, but Yeoman Edwards was at her station, and her head came up at Joker's comment. She followed his gaze and said, "Ah," distinctly.

He looked at her. "What do you mean 'ah'?"

"Nothing," she said, hastily, and looked down at her console.

"Kelly..."

"Joker?"

He sighed, took his cap off to scratch his head, and put it back on. "Not making it easy are you?"

Kelly smiled sweetly at him. "Don't know what you're talking about."

"Like hell, Miss Shrink," he said, rolling his eyes. He liked Kelly ok, but he always had the feeling that if she stared at him too long, she'd start dissecting his brain or something. "I mean Jacob. And the Commander."

Kelly looked at the pair of them. Jacob had gestured to something in the armoury, and Shepard followed him inside. The door slid shut behind them.

"You think they're together?" she asked.

"You don't?" He folded his arms, leaning against the edge of the consoles better to look at her. "I've seen the way he looks at her. He's besotted."

"Yeah," Kelly said, "Poor man."

He leaned in close, lowering his voice. "You do know something."

Kelly bit her lip, but Joker was counting on the instinct to gossip. She wasn't formally the ship's psychologist, it was just a useful skill that she put at Shepard's disposal. Joker could see the moment when her resolve broke, and she turned towards him, leaning closer so that they couldn't be overheard gossiping in the middle of the CIC. "I think Jacob likes her. Really likes her."

"Who doesn't?" Joker said with a huff of laughter.

"Exactly," Kelly said, "Shepard has this... magnetic aura. She's good at getting people on her side. Really good. Always knows what to say, how to talk, even her body language changes depending on who she speaks to. People respond well to that. Some... respond even better than others."

Joker drew back ever so slightly. "So, what, you think she's manipulating him?"

"No!" Kelly looked around guiltily and dropped her voice back down into the hushed tones they'd be using. "I think she's charming, warm and... very lonely."

"Lonely," he echoed.

"She's been dead two years," Kelly reminded him, "The world's changed. Everyone she knew is different. Except for you, and I don't know if you're aware how important that connection is to her."

He didn't know, actually, but didn't say anything.

"She's suffering an intense sense of dislocation. Places are different, people are different. Imagine going to bed one night and when you woke up in the morning, everything you know had changed. The places you lived gone, friends and lovers treating you like a stranger."

Joker frowned, and while he understood what Kelly was saying, he realised that he couldn't actually imagine that happening to himself. It just seemed too alien a concept to deal with, too strange and-

Oh.

"Jacob cares about her loneliness," Kelly continued, "He cares about her. She likes that feeling. But I think she's... well... I think she's hung up on someone else. She likes the attention, but if he wants something serious, it's not gonna happen."

Kelly bit her lip. "I've said too much. I should get back to work."

He tried for a few more minutes to get something out of her, but she refused to budge, so he headed down to the mess, mulling things over. Once he'd sat down with a try of food, he opened his omni-tool, and stared at the message he'd received a while ago, but hadn't known exactly how to respond to.

Joker, it started. Bored yet of running freighters through the Traverse? I'll never understand you.

It wasn't that Joker liked lying to an old friend, but he wasn't about to say 'Hey, guess what, I work for Cerberus now, you know those people who murdered all those folks that we spent a while chasing down?'. So he lied. Cerberus had put a very convincing false trail in place that made it look like he was piloting freighters around the Traverse for Yellow Dawn Shipping. That the company was a Cerberus subsidiary just made it easier. He very carefully never made mention of anything incriminating in his personal mail outside of the organisation, pretty convinced that everything was monitored, but he didn't want to risk Alenko's life by him becoming curious and looking into what Joker was doing.

I suppose I have no idea how to say this, so the most straightforward way is probably the best. Shepard's alive. I saw her while I was on a mission. She's working for Cerberus. I can't understand how she can be the same woman I fell for and be working for Cerberus.

That, oddly enough, hurt a bit.

I don't know what she's been doing for two years, but I'd watch yourself. If you run into her out there just know that she's got some shadowy backers these days. It scares me a bit, but what was worse was how I looked at her and realised that I never really stopped loving her. Is that sad? Two years of her being dead and I couldn't get over her? She's changed though, something... basic. I can't explain it. I think she's taller, for one.

I know you felt guilty about her death, and I'd be lying if I said I didn't blame you just a bit. If I ever made you feel worse about that, I'm sorry. I guess I didn't even realise how much it hurt until I saw her again. I'd managed to make myself forget. Even dated for a bit, even if it didn't feel like it was when I was with her, but no relationship ever matches up with others, right? I wonder if she ever really cared.

I'm rambling. Take care of yourself, Joker.

Kaidan

Joker stared at the message a long time. He opened the reply window.

I think she loved you then, and I'm willing to bet she loves you now. You know her better than anyone, man. You really think she's dangerous? Joker thought about it, then erased the last word.
You really think she's untrustworthy? I wouldn't want anyone else saving the human race.

He had no idea if that would get past the Cerberus censors, but he kinda hoped that Kaidan got the message.

I know how it was with you when she died. Don't let the chance you have slip by.

**

Eight

**

They sat in the Normandy's mess, two cups of coffee long since gone cold sitting between them. Late in the 'night' shift, there wasn't anyone walking around, but they kept their voices low out of deference to the risk of anyone walking by and overhearing them.

"Can I ask you a personal question?"

Shepard's mouth quirked into a smile. "Kaidan," she murmured, "Considering how much of yourself, your past, you've revealed to me, it would probably be very churlish of me to say no."

He gave her a lopsided smile, one that made the muscles in her abdomen clench; the one that made her tuck her legs under her chair a little bit further to hide any shifting motions she might have made. "That wouldn't be very gentlemanly of me, would it?"

"So ask." She turned the mug in front of her between her hands, just to give them something to do.

He leaned back briefly, studying her. Nerves fluttered vaguely in her stomach, but she held her tongue, waiting. Finally, he said, "Why does no one, not even that gang scum that tried to corner you on the Citadel, call you by your first name?"

She let out a breath she hadn't even realised she'd been holding, more nervous about what he could have asked her than she'd realised. "That's all?" she said, teasingly, though she dropped her eyes to the stagnant liquid in her mug, not quite able to look at him while she spoke. "You're not going to ask me about my childhood, or what it was like to be one woman against Thresher Maws out to eat me for breakfast?"

He leaned forward, and touched one finger to the back of her hand briefly to get her attention. She felt the afterimage of the touch even though it was brief and hardly anything to write to a Court Martial board about. He was still smiling, gently. "If you want to tell me, I'll listen, but I know as well as anyone that you shouldn't have to talk about those things if you don't want to."

Guilt twisted at her for a moment. "I didn't mean to make you-"

He stopped her with a raised hand. "I said 'if you don't want to' didn't I? I wanted to."

"Alright," she said, "But why no one uses my first name is hardly on the same order of things. It seems a bit one-sided, this personal stuff."

"I'm curious," Kaidan admitted.

She laughed slightly and shrugged. "It really isn't very interesting. The sign-up form has two spaces for a name. First and last. I made it up. I was always just 'Shepard' before that."

She'd thought it was a fairly simple answer, but his forehead creased in slight confusion. "I... I guess I don't get it," he said, "You... don't have a first name?"

"According to my file I do," she said, waving her hand in the air vaguely, as if to indicate the information in the ether. "But if I've got a birth certificate anywhere, it's probably not the same one. I was always Shepard, growing up. Don't know if that was my parent's surname, but it was what I got called. I didn't need more than that, until I found myself in the waiting area of an Alliance recruiting station, staring at the 'first name' bit of the form and wondering what to put."

"So how'd you come up with it?"

"Well..." She hesitated, wondering whether telling him would destroy her big-bad-scary-spectre image, but the way he had his head propped on his hand, grinning, told her that it might be a bit too late. "One of the other girls there to sign up had this fashion magazine. I asked if I could borrow it and, uh..." She took a deep breath and plunged on. "I flipped through until I found a picture of a model I liked and used her name."

Kaidan's brow furrowed. "So your name..."

"... is really some model's name." She grinned and shook her head, "Not that I ever use it for anything other than my login. She was blonde and way too thin. But I thought it would have looked weird on the form. It didn't occur to me that I could have explained and they probably would have just let me leave it blank, or just used a default name as filler."

She leaned forward and lowered her voice, "Anyway. I think 'Commander' works just fine as a first name, right?"

"Bit awkward to call out in a fit of passion, isn't it?" She half expected him to back down after uttering such a blatantly flirtatious statement, but he stared back at her, unblinkingly, and, underneath the table, she locked her ankles together.

"I suppose so..." she said, half-whispering, "I think just 'Shepard' works for that."

Kaidan tilted his head slowly and smiled. "I'll bear that in mind."

**

Nine

**

Shepard felt freer than she had in months, like a stifling tightness around her chest had suddenly been removed, letting her take deep, gulping breaths of air. One Collector base destroyed, one Illusive man comprehensively told to fuck off, one ship's crew saved, one team emerged from 'certain death'.

All in all, it felt like a damned good day.

Of course, there was the minor factor of a soon-to-be-coming invasion of cosmic horrors, but somehow that hadn't managed to dampen her spirits too much. She'd stared at the readouts of purloined Reaper data for a while, before turning to the others, who were gathered around, no doubt waiting for her to say something profound, and all she'd managed was to wave the datapad in the air and gleefully say,

"Who's up for kicking some ancient tentacled ass?"

Jack, of all people, had thrown up her hands and only said, "What, right now? You're fucking crazy, woman."

From her, Shepard took it as quite a compliment.

Of course, the adrenaline and flush of success would wear off in pretty short order, she was certain. But it had all been worth it to see Miranda start giggling at the absurdity of the situation, burying her face in her hands, her shoulder's shaking, until Shepard had started to wonder if she was crying. Before long the entire lot of them were laughing with something approaching hysteria, except for Zaeed and Samara, who looked exasperated and fond, respectively.

She'd checked in with her crew, who were traumatised to varying degrees from being kidnapped by the Collectors. By far the worst off was poor Kelly, who seemed to have taken a severe emotional battering from the whole experience. All Shepard could do was to give her a hug, and promise to be there if she needed to talk.

"Isn't that my line?" Kelly asked, surreptitiously trying to wipe away her tears.

"I think I know a thing or two about surviving horrible experiences," she just said, and told Kelly to call on her any time she needed talk. She wasn't sure how, but Kelly had managed to worm her way into the ranks of her 'friends' without her noticing.

The fish were all dead in her quarters, of course. They'd died when EDI had opened all the airlocks and spaced the Collectors. What was frankly worrying was that the hamster was still there, contentedly chewing on a stick of carrot.

"I know what you're up to," she told it, "Don't think I don't. I've got my eye on you."

"Squeak," the hamster said, innocently.

She walked around her quarters for a time, righting the books and datapads that had slid to the floor during the less-than-textbook docking with the Collector base. Some of the little ship models she'd indulged in were broken. She contemplated not bothering to replace them. She'd been in the military most of her life, and she'd never bothered to accumulate possessions. It had never been practical when you were posted on ships that only gave you a sleeper pod and a locker to call your own. The only real possession she'd cared for was a datapad with correspondence, music, and pictures stored on it, and that had gone down with the Normandy, over Alchera.

She'd searched the crash site for it, but hadn't found anything, of course.

Shepard was willing to admit that she might have gone a little crazy with the personal belongings with the unaccustomed freedoms allowed on a civilian ship. A lot of it was junk, for the most part. Except for the helmet, and the only photo she had...

She'd felt like a sentimental idiot when she'd done a cursory sweep of Cerberus's database for details on her old crew, copying the file photo of Kaidan Alenko over to a stand-alone frame. Of course, she'd still done it, and left it there to look at every time she sat down at her desk, which she did now, fingers moving of their own volition over the communications system.

Something occurred to her. "EDI?"

The AI's abstract holographic avatar sprung into being in the corner of the room. "Yes, Shepard?"

She frowned. "Are all our communications still being copied to the Illusive Man?"

"No, Shepard. Jeff had me strip those algorithms from the communications system immediately after your last communication with the Illusive Man."

Shepard felt her lips twitch into a smile. Trust Joker. "Thank you, EDI."

"Logging you out, Shepard."

With nothing to stop her, she regarded the dim-orange glow of the terminal screen with something akin to apprehension. Then she reminded herself that she and her crew had just kicked an ancient space-faring evil squarely in the balls, and if she wasn't going to do something rash and impulsive today, then she never would.

She opened the 'new message' screen and started writing.

Kaidan...

** The End **